They've already called him the anti-Italy strike and, beyond the rhetorical exaggerations and the more or less facade declarations, the strike that held with their arms crossed the construction workers of the Canton of Ticino, in Bellinzona, has all the characteristics of a protest against Italian companies and workers.
The cornerstone that has come to disturb the proverbial Swiss social peace is the invasion of local artisans and small entrepreneurs, especially from Lombardy, who have taken the Swiss housing market by storm (there are 11 thousand jobs entrusted to Italian companies and 54 thousand Italians who work as employees in Ticino), taking advantage of the opportunity, granted to foreign companies by the 2009 agreements between Bern and the EU, to win contracts on Swiss soil. A real invasion which had, as its main consequence, to bring down prices and wages.
As stated by Sergio Aureli, manager of Unia, the largest workers' union in Canton Ticino, "with the mass arrival of Italian firms, market prices have plummeted by 35-40%“. However, Aureli is keen to clarify that "ours is a strike against those who do not respect the rules", to prevent the construction sector from becoming "a land of conquest for unscrupulous speculators who cause damage to the economy and fuel exploitation and competition between wage earners".
What is contested against the Italians, negative protagonists even of the first episodes of illegal hiring in Italian-speaking Switzerland, is above all the case of the "employees masquerading as self-employed through a fictitious chain of subcontracts", to circumvent the wage limits set by Swiss law.
Fausto Cacciatori, president of Cna Lombardia, an acronym for small entrepreneurs, intervened in defense of the category: “Tomorrow's is an initiative that doesn't square with the aggressive marketing implemented above all by Canton Ticino. Here alone, a hundred companies have relocated thanks to promises of tax relief, streamlined bureaucracy and efficient infrastructure. What is happening it is part of the normal dynamics of response to the great changes of the last ten years. Whoever has the duty to verify any irregularities should do so; this applies to both Italy and Switzerland”.
